Books

[Stargazer]

Odds Are You're Going to Be Exalted by Alonzo L. Glaskill.

There's one I've read. What did you think of it?

I forgot to put that one in my current reading list -- not done with it so far, but I find his arguments persuasive. And comforting.

[Stargazer]

The last fiction i read was called Zone One, which is billed as a zombie book for adults.  Stir clear.  It was horrible.  The most boring book i've ever read.  I am not at all exaggerating when i say that during one zombie attack the protagonist stopped and reveled in past memories for FOUR PAGES while a zombie was actively trying to bite him. By the time he got back around to the attack i couldn't remember what had actually been going on.  And the author used every big word he had ever heard of whenever he could.  It was like trying to read a story written by a thesaurus.

Well, I like big words, too. Look out, I might put a few into my next book. Heh

But I hate zombies with a capital H. I don't mean that I have any problem with the Undead, as long as they don't eat my brains or something rude like that, but I hate the entire Zombie Genre. I utterly refuse to see a zombie movie or read a zombie book. I am the lone voice of sanity in the universe about how completely stupid the entire concept of zombies is.

[Stargazer]

I guess I'll have to respectfully disagree with both Twain on the BoM, and with you on Tolkien.

I am with you on both points except for The Silmarillion. I guess it was essential reading in order to understand Tolkien's universe, but I could not keep reading it. It kept trying to put me to sleep.

Fortunately, for a quick gloss on the whole thing we have C.G.P. Grey, a YouTuber who explains a lot of things on his channel, including the background to The Lord of the Rings, its mythology. Two essential videos are this one:

Part I

and Part II

These two videos explained a lot to me and things about LoTR that I couldn't figure out became more clear. PLUS, I didn't have to read The Silmarillion to get the info! Yay!

[Garden Girl]

I forgot to list two LDS books that I really like because they belonged to my parents.  When my dad died (3 years after mom), I went through some of their books and picked out two... both over 60 years old.

 

First... "Temples of the Most High" (1954)... a compilation by N. B. Lundwall of the dedicatory prayers for the temples completed to that date (10), and several temple sites.  And, their historical/physical descriptions, incidents and manifestations of divine acceptance, and the efficacy and sacredness of temple ordinances...

 

and Second (my favorite)... "The Vision... or Degrees of Glory" (Doc. and Cov. Section 76) (1951) ... a compilation by N. B. Lundwall of "rare and invaluable writings by authorities of the Church, as well as quotations from eminent historians, philosophers, Catholic fathers and Protestant leaders. 

 

This book also contains The King Follett Discourse... and... the lengthy poetic version of The Vision written by Joseph Smith to W. W. Phelps, dated Nauvoo, February 1843.

 

GG

 

[Stargazer]

I want to make a disclaimer. I do not propose that my favorite books should be anybody else's favorites. What was once a favorite is no longer so for me. We all grow and change. But some linger. Some books that were once favorite still seem...great.

 

One at a time:

 

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

 

I am a junkie for Russian literature. I could name other authors, even other Russians, with whom I am in much greater philosophical agreement who only walk in the footsteps of Tolstoy's epic story. I don't agree with the message that Tolstoy was preaching in his writing of the book. He was way too much of a fatalist for me. I read a new biography of Napoleon (Andrew Roberts) immediately after finishing War and Peace again this summer. Tolstoy is just wrong in my view. Individuals make history. Napoleon moved the French (and their allies) to Moscow when no one else could have so done. But I suspect I will be reading War and Peace every so often the rest of my life. It is not his "fact", but his fiction which seems more true to me.

 

I have a theory about his fictional characters; about what he was trying to say with each of them. I see Tolstoy, at the time he wrote War and Peace, as a modern day Solomon in Ecclesiastes, looking for meaning in this world through characters that beginning with great enthusiasm, are always disappointed. I have never heard anybody else make that comparison. I would be very willing to discuss this with anybody familiar with his work. Everybody gets disappointed after an initial enthusiasm. Tolstoy was thrashing around to find meaning in life, and hadn't written chapter 12 (of Ecclesiastes) yet.

 

I have a favorite historical work:

 

Natasha's Dance, by Orlando Figes

 

This work is larger than the title might suggest. Natasha Rostov was the main female character in War and Peace. A beautiful and vivacious teenager born in to privilege, but who upon being accidentally thrust in to a situation where there were traditional Russian folk dances, without any prior experience, performed them flawlessly, because of her inherent "Russianness". How could she have done this? This is a less than major theme introduced by Tolstoy, but taken up at times by "Slavophiles" like Dostoevsky, and still taken seriously by modern historians such as Figes. Figes leaves the question unanswered as far as I can tell, as to whether one can absorb "Russia" from the air that Russians breathe, or whether it is taught. Maybe it isn't even important. The history does not dwell at length on Tolstoy's fictional character, but to me seems rather to focus upon the profound effect that Russian belief in such "Russianness" has affected modern Russian history, and as a result, ours, from the days of the Czars and through the Revolution. It is almost as though belief in "Russianness" creates "Russianness" and the distinct character of that people which continues to perplex Russia's western neighbors unto this day.

That was very interesting, Rory!

I've long thought about what I call the concept of The Volk (German, for People, or "Folk"). I hold as a plausible conclusion that Germans, Russians, Spaniards, Moors, Watusis and what have you are not each of a particular Volk because of their culture or their genetics, but because of their everyday language. Russian is a fatalistic, depressive language, and it so shapes the people who speak it. German is a precise, prescriptive language and it shapes its speakers into being regimented and coherent. Even their rebels rebel in very regimented fashion. Spanish is a warm, passionate language and it shapes its speakers into being hot-blooded and expansive.

The greatest philosophers and scientists are German; the greatest artists are French and Italian; the greatest businesspeople are British and Americans; the greatest conquerors used to be Arabic speakers (nowadays they are just bloodthirsty) and Mongols. And not because of their genetics but because of their languages. This does not preclude other language groups from having great philosophers, etc., but it explains why so many subject-matter experts tend to rise from particular language groups.

This may be a completely bogus theory. I can devise an experiment to prove it, but it would be cruel to do so. You'd need to take, for example, a few thousand babies away from their parents, and raise them using different language parents to speak something other than their biological "mother" tongue. We could then observe if, for example, racial Japanese would behave like cultural Germans, because they were raised to speak German as their mother tongue. This is not an experiment I would want to see done, for obvious reasons.

But since we LDS believe that Adam spoke Adamic, and that was a language inherited from God, I wonder what an Adamic language culture would look like? Well, given that Noah spoke Adamic and so did all the people that God wiped out for being wicked, maybe Adamic isn't quite the panacea one might think.

[hagoth7]

Hagoth I liked it, it gives me hope that the eternities will work out. It's an uplifting book that's for sure.

There were several common threads between that book and an Education Week session I attended earlier this year.

[bluebell]

Well, I like big words, too. Look out, I might put a few into my next book. Heh

But I hate zombies with a capital H. I don't mean that I have any problem with the Undead, as long as they don't eat my brains or something rude like that, but I hate the entire Zombie Genre. I utterly refuse to see a zombie movie or read a zombie book. I am the lone voice of sanity in the universe about how completely stupid the entire concept of zombies is.

 

This was how he described walking into an office building looking for zombies-

 

"When they stepped into the lawyers' suite they stumbled into a sophisticated grotto, as if the floor has been dealt into the building from some more upscale deck. In the waiting room, their helmet lights roved over the perplexing gemoetric forms in the carpet that they sullied with their combat boots, the broad panels of dark zebra wood covering the walls with elegant surety, and the low, sleek furniture that promised bruises yet, when tested, compressed one's body according to newly discovered princliples of somatic harmony."

 

Every single paragraph was like this.  By page 10 i wanted to shoot myself.

[ERayR]

I guess I'll have to respectfully disagree with both Twain on the BoM, and with you on Tolkien.

 

I also disagree with Twain on the BoM.  It has been quite some years since I tried Tolkien.  Maybe I should try again.

[ERayR]

I am with you on both points except for The Silmarillion. I guess it was essential reading in order to understand Tolkien's universe, but I could not keep reading it. It kept trying to put me to sleep.

 

My experience with it exactly and as it was my first Tolkien and there was much other reading available, well . . .

[Rivers]

LDS: The God Who Weeps

Secular : Team of Rivals

Fiction: The Kite Runner

Currently Reading: The Way of Kings

Edited October 8, 2015 by Rivers

[3DOP]

That was very interesting, Rory!

I've long thought about what I call the concept of The Volk (German, for People, or "Folk"). I hold as a plausible conclusion that Germans, Russians, Spaniards, Moors, Watusis and what have you are not each of a particular Volk because of their culture or their genetics, but because of their everyday language. Russian is a fatalistic, depressive language, and it so shapes the people who speak it. German is a precise, prescriptive language and it shapes its speakers into being regimented and coherent. Even their rebels rebel in very regimented fashion. Spanish is a warm, passionate language and it shapes its speakers into being hot-blooded and expansive.

The greatest philosophers and scientists are German; the greatest artists are French and Italian; the greatest businesspeople are British and Americans; the greatest conquerors used to be Arabic speakers (nowadays they are just bloodthirsty) and Mongols. And not because of their genetics but because of their languages. This does not preclude other language groups from having great philosophers, etc., but it explains why so many subject-matter experts tend to rise from particular language groups.

This may be a completely bogus theory. I can devise an experiment to prove it, but it would be cruel to do so. You'd need to take, for example, a few thousand babies away from their parents, and raise them using different language parents to speak something other than their biological "mother" tongue. We could then observe if, for example, racial Japanese would behave like cultural Germans, because they were raised to speak German as their mother tongue. This is not an experiment I would want to see done, for obvious reasons.

But since we LDS believe that Adam spoke Adamic, and that was a language inherited from God, I wonder what an Adamic language culture would look like? Well, given that Noah spoke Adamic and so did all the people that God wiped out for being wicked, maybe Adamic isn't quite the panacea one might think.

 

Stargazer...not knowing any other tongue than my native English, I am unqualified to analyze your theory. But I have for a long time thought, unpopular as the idea might be, that different nationalities had different character tendencies. It seems to me like your explanation, that this mostly has to do with the mother tongue, might serve as a buffer against the idea that some races are genetically backwards. I find your theory more compelling than others I have heard. 

 

Do you have a reason for saying that the Russian language is "depressing"? Is that your own idea? Even though I do not speak the language, I wonder if I could offer a better description than "depressing"? What about a language of melancholy. Melancholy can certainly lead to depression, but it can also lead to depths and heights of reflection. Melancholy expresses the weakness as well as the strength. I hope you approve of the suggestion.

 

-------

 

Less than a hundred years ago Czar Nicholas was agonizing over the question of whether to assume command of the armed forces of his great state. I am currently reading the second of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's three part story of the Russian Revolution. November 1916, The Red Wheel, explains that author's view of how Communism came to Russia. Less than one year later, in October 1917, the miracle of the sun occurred in Fatima, Portugal.

 

The message that Catholics like me believe in, comes from a series of apparitions and miracles involving three illiterate peasant children telling the world to pray and do penance with an appeal to the pope for a special conversion of the state of Russia, which would bring an era of peace to the world. If this was not done, we are told, the "errors of Russia" would rapidly spread and proliferate through the world, and the Church herself would be afflicted. One hundred years ago, no, ten years ago, it was unthinkable that a pope could be photographed with some kind of blasphemous image around his neck of a crucified Christ with a hammer and sicle. Soviet style communism may seem like a dim memory. But the legacy of Lenin, and the fundamental faults of Soviet Russia seem to me to have been infiltrated as by disguise into western societies and institutions that were initially opposed to Bolshevism. 

 

The Catholic Church herself today seems so afflicted. Some do not know this, but it is easily documented, how the Catholic Church thought itself to be speaking in a new way to "the Modern World" at Vatican II. What is less well known is how in the days preceding the Cuban missile crisis, the Vatican made a secret agreement with the Soviet government to allow Orthodox representatives at the Council, by promising not to condemn Communism. Against a weak chorus of a few strong bishops, mostly from countries under Red domination, who urged that one could not speak about the modern world without a discussion of communism in 1962, Rome managed to promulgate hundreds of pages of supposedly updated words to modern man without one mention of "the errors of Russia" in general or communism specifically.

 

Finally, what is even less known, is that John XXIII was pope when the time came to open a sealed letter from Sister Lucia, the surviving member of the three children of Fatima. We have a pretty good idea that the same themes were repeated begging of the pope to make a special act of consecration of the state of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Mother. It wouldn't take fifteen minutes. He demurred, saying that this message is "not for our times". Instead he called for a great ecumenical Council that would take three years and leave fifty more years of ruin for the Catholic Church in its wake. At the height of a Cold War which threatened to destroy the world, he was like the Syrian general of the Old Testament Naaman, who when the prophet instructed him to find a cure for his ills wanted to do some great thing. John XXIII would have been horrified to have foreseen the Church as it is today. Paul VI, his successor, is famously known for admitting that instead of receiving fresh air from opening wide the windows of the Church to the world, the aftermath of Vatican II seems more like "the smoke of Satan entering the Church".

 

Like, Naaman, the popes today, at the height of Christendom's rejection of Christ, don't want to do a simple thing like take a dip in a river to cure the moral and physical ills which plague our world. They dance around it. They can't seem to obey. They consecrate "the world" instead telling us that this includes Russia. They still act as though they think they have a better idea than the little prophets that God sent. Heaven never asked for a Council or for a consecration of the whole world. It is a specific, simple, and easily performed request. So far, after almost 99 years, the popes won't do what our Lady asked, and war and moral decline continues.

 

 

However, Our Lady told us that the popes would hesitate. But a pope will do it, eventually. "Late," she said. But better late than never! Do Catholics lose the faith when everything that was prophesied, even though it involves a "diabolical disorientation" in the Catholic Church, takes place before our eyes? This fuels my interest and focus on Russia and Russianness. Why is this country, according to Traditional Catholicism, so important to the plan of God in these latter days? We are still waiting to find out. Your explanation of Russianness is most intriguing. To be sure, it is a mystery, unprovable. In any case, like Dostoevsky, I am convinced that in some respect "Russianness", will be a key instrument for the salvation of the world in these times.

 

Anyway, Stargazer, you can't believe in my reveries now. But if something really good and amazing happens in the world, greater than a miracle of the sun, involving a persecuted pope and Russia in your lifetime, remember this, and let it help guide your understanding of events. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us. 

 

Rory

Edited October 9, 2015 by 3DOP

[mirkwood]

Favorite LDS: The First Two Thousand Years (Skousen), The Coming of the Lord (Lund)

 

Non Fiction: American Sniper, Inside Delta Force, Rouge Warrior, One Perfect Op, Shooter, Masters Of Chaos and many many more military books.

 

Fiction: Hobbit & LOTR, Gaunts Ghosts series, Ravenor series, Eisenhorn series, Dresden Files, most of the Drizzt books, One Second After and many many more. 

 

Currently: just started Juggernaut.

[Stargazer]

 

This was how he described walking into an office building looking for zombies-

 

"When they stepped into the lawyers' suite they stumbled into a sophisticated grotto, as if the floor has been dealt into the building from some more upscale deck. In the waiting room, their helmet lights roved over the perplexing gemoetric forms in the carpet that they sullied with their combat boots, the broad panels of dark zebra wood covering the walls with elegant surety, and the low, sleek furniture that promised bruises yet, when tested, compressed one's body according to newly discovered princliples of somatic harmony."

 

Every single paragraph was like this.  By page 10 i wanted to shoot myself.

 

Holy moly.  I wouldn't have gotten past page 3 with that kind of drivel.  Do you realize that that sentence actually makes no kind of sense at all?  Yikes.

 

Please don't shoot yourself.  It hurts.

[Stargazer]

My experience with it exactly and as it was my first Tolkien and there was much other reading available, well . . .

 

Oh dear.  If that was your first Tolkien, it's no wonder you felt that way.  In the "real" Tolkien (e.g. The Hobbit), he does sometimes get expansive with his descriptions, but he was a professor of philology, for goodness sake.  He was in love with words, so no wonder he put them to uses both great and small.

[Stargazer]

LDS: The God Who Weeps

Secular : Team of Rivals

Fiction: The Kite Runner

Currently Reading: The Way of Kings

 

Oy, vey.  I started reading The Kite Runner, but it started depressing me remarkably, so I quit.

[Stargazer]

Stargazer...not knowing any other tongue than my native English, I am unqualified to analyze your theory. But I have for a long time thought, unpopular as the idea might be, that different nationalities had different character tendencies. It seems to me like your explanation, that this mostly has to do with the mother tongue, might serve as a buffer against the idea that some races are genetically backwards. I find your theory more compelling than others I have heard. 

 

Do you have a reason for saying that the Russian language is "depressing"? Is that your own idea? Even though I do not speak the language, I wonder if I could offer a better description than "depressing"? What about a language of melancholy. Melancholy can certainly lead to depression, but it can also lead to depths and heights of reflection. Melancholy expresses the weakness as well as the strength. I hope you approve of the suggestion.

 

-------

 

Less than a hundred years ago Czar Nicholas was agonizing over the question of whether to assume command of the armed forces of his great state. I am currently reading the second of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's three part story of the Russian Revolution. November 1916, The Red Wheel, explains that author's view of how Communism came to Russia. Less than one year later, in October 1917, the miracle of the sun occurred in Fatima, Portugal.

 

<snip />

Rory

Oh my goodness. I'm sorry, but I started reading your entire post and then realized that if I got started I would not be able to sleep before I offered you a detailed response to it, and it is almost 4:00 am and I am supposed to be at work at 8:00 am. My sleep schedule has been so completely shot since the events of a couple of weeks ago, and I still can't get back on the clock like I'm supposed to be. I absolutely must go to bed right this minute even though I don't really feel tired yet.

So I will only say this: yes, I accept your addendum about "melancholy", which is a better term for it than "depressive". I have read some Russian writers in translation, and perhaps I've read the wrong ones, but yes it does seem like there is a theme of melancholy running through much of their work. I do know that having read certain of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's books, such as "The Gulag Archipelago" (first volume only), and "Cancer Ward," I was plenty depressed by the end. Oh, yes, and also Vladimir Voinovich's "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin" (also, only the first volume). I am perhaps spoiled by these works which clearly grew out of the depressive Soviet times. Perhaps there are other, less melancholy authors, whom I have missed. But you are correct when you say that great literature can grow out of great melancholy.

More later, when I can take some time with it!

[ERayR]

Favorite LDS: The First Two Thousand Years (Skousen), The Coming of the Lord (Lund)

 

 

I have all of Skousen's thousand year books.  They helped me make sense of a lot of the Old Testament.

[Garden Girl]

I have all of Skousen's thousand year books.  They helped me make sense of a lot of the Old Testament.

 

My folks had a wonderful library of LDS books... My dad (step-dad) was a convert and my sis and I are sealed to our mother and step-father.  He has a daughter, my step-sister, who is not LDS.

I mentioned earlier that when my dad died 3 years after mom, I flew down to So Cal and while at the house I took two small volumes that I told about earlier in this thread.  Anyway, I was looking at all of their books and thinking I'd like to have some others.  They, too, had all of Skousen's thousand year books. Anyway, a technicality caused the funeral to be delayed so I had to fly home.  Since I had gone through all of my mom's things when she had died, I left my step-sister to go through dad's.  The next week I took a quick one-day trip to So Cal. 

When I went to our house, my step-sis had gotten rid of just about everything... and there on the front porch in a couple of boxes was all of my folks' LDS books... I was in a rush on my way to the airport so I had no time to do anything about them, but I hoped she had called the Church and told someone to come and get them... On top of one box was a volume of Jesus the Christ with a cover like a bible.  I picked it up and opened the cover... there were the signatures of all of the stake high council wishing my dad well when he ended his stake clerk calling... reading the names at age 58 brought back so many memories from 38 years ago... I was just looking at that volume the other day.  Ninety-five percent of those who signed are now gone... and anyone left is in their 90's... I love that little book, not only for it's content, but because the signers thought to give it to my dad...

 

GG

[bluebell]

Holy moly.  I wouldn't have gotten past page 3 with that kind of drivel.  Do you realize that that sentence actually makes no kind of sense at all?  Yikes.

 

Please don't shoot yourself.  It hurts.

 

It was a mind-numbing 100 pages (that's as far as i made it).  The only thing that kept me holding on was that the jacket alluded to something horrible happening and making the story more exciting.  I read the reviews though and realized that nothing was coming and finally thru in the towel.

 

In those 100 pages there was one zombie attack.  

[ERayR]

It was a mind-numbing 100 pages (that's as far as i made it).  The only thing that kept me holding on was that the jacket alluded to something horrible happening and making the story more exciting.  I read the reviews though and realized that nothing was coming and finally thru in the towel.

 

In those 100 pages there was one zombie attack.  

 

Serves you right for reading that zombie stuff.

[bluebell]

Serves you right for reading that zombie stuff.

 

[Rivers]

Oy, vey. I started reading The Kite Runner, but it started depressing me remarkably, so I quit.

In that case, you probably wouldn't want to go near A Thousand Splendid Suns from the same author. Both are difficult reads but are uplifting in the end.

[bluebell]

In that case, you probably wouldn't want to go near A Thousand Splendid Suns from the same author. Both are difficult reads but are uplifting in the end.

 

I read The Kite Runner but did not like it at all.  Too dark for me.  I can do dark if something good comes out of it, but I don't want to read about horrible stuff happening unless there's some pretty huge rainbow coming at the end.  

[Stargazer]

In that case, you probably wouldn't want to go near A Thousand Splendid Suns from the same author. Both are difficult reads but are uplifting in the end.

Well, that is nice but I have enough melancholy in my life at the moment. I am glad they are uplifting at the end, though. Maybe later I will try again with The Kite Runner.

[Stargazer]

I read The Kite Runner but did not like it at all.  Too dark for me.  I can do dark if something good comes out of it, but I don't want to read about horrible stuff happening unless there's some pretty huge rainbow coming at the end.

Well, she said there were rainbows at the end, so....